


Relics of War: A Helo Drabble Collection

by Trovia



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Backstory, Drabble Collection, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-09
Updated: 2010-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-13 14:22:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trovia/pseuds/Trovia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to go to Caprica. He wants to be more than just a miner, and to go and see the world. Yet he can’t wait to be back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relics of War: A Helo Drabble Collection

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fifteen weekly prompts at [bsg_100](http://community.livejournal.com/bsg_100/).

  
**goodbye**   


Three weeks after his seventeenth birthday, Karl came home to find his mother sitting at the kitchen table; she was crying desperately, arms wrapped around the baby tightly. Karl had been out playing pyramid with his friends. Meanwhile, a mine had caved in and his father had died.

His brothers had been working at a different site that day, thank the Gods.

When she told him, his mind went blank. All he could do was try and remember what he’d said to his dad in the morning. Surely he’d told him he loved him. Surely he’d told him goodbye.

Right?

 

  
**bearer of news**   


“Is that your acceptance letter?” his mother asked when he sat down at her bedside.

“Yes, it is,” Karl said. “I’m going to flight school on Caprica.”

“We can’t afford...”

“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted her. “I’ll make do. And as soon as I can, I’ll send money home for all of you. Pilots make lots and lots of money.”

She smiled, leaning into his touch with a sigh when he caressed her cheek. For a moment, her eyes unfocussed, finally resting on the paper in his hand.

“Is that your acceptance letter?” she asked.

Karl tried to smile.

 

  
**restless farewell**   


His mum is too sick to leave the house but all his siblings bid him farewell at the spaceport. The oldest, Jeff, slips him some money, and little Erna breaks into tears when he picks her up and hugs her tight.

Karl turns around in time to see a transit ship launch, spiraling up and higher up toward the skies, melting into a faint black dot, already gone. Wistfully, he smiles. He wants to go to Caprica. He wants to be more than just a miner, and to go and see the world.

Yet he can’t wait to be back.

 

  
**unfit to represent the fleet**   


The first time Karl poses sprawling on a beach, he doesn’t feel that comfortable. He knows it’s against regs, even if he’s pretty sure that nobody will ever find out. The magazine is only read in high society, and it’s not that the camera is focussing on his face.

It beats construction work to pay for flight school.

“Oh, they won’t use your last name, don’t worry,” his agent tells him cheerfully, openly delighted with the shots. “The underline will just say ‘Karl’. Karl.”

Karl smiles tightly.

With any luck he’ll have a callsign to go by soon, he hopes.

 

  
**acrylics**   


Karl isn’t one to spy on other people’s mail, even if it’s just his dorm mate’s, who he barely knows and who doesn’t seem to be overly interested in making nice with him either. She rarely gets any mail though and he’s brought the package up to their room for her in the first place, so when he sees the open cardboard box standing on the desk, he thinks, what the frak, and peers inside.

It’s a palette of what he thinks are acrylics.

Karl snorts a laugh.

Who would have thought? He never would have figured Thrace the type.

 

  
**back on track**   


Karl gave up on modeling when the fleet granted him a scholarship in his second year. After the last shoot, which had taken place in the studio (involving three nude models and a motorcycle), he left the building and glanced up into the bright summer sky.

It would have fit the mood if a raptor had flown by right then but alas, none showed up.

 _No more disobeying regs,_ he thought, searching anyway. _No more stupid lies._

A smile was tucking at the corners of his mouth when he stepped onto the street.

Time to work on becoming an officer.

 

  
**remembrance**   


In his last year at the academy, Karl hiked through the Argosian Mountains with some friends to get drunk on a hilltop; just because they could. The bonfire fluttering and heating their faces, they told each other silly stories, talking of expectations and dreams. Arnissa wanted to stay in the service. Michael wanted to marry a singer. Tara just wanted to be famous. All three of them died in the attacks, of course.

There’s comfort in remembering that Kara was waiting for him in the dorm a day later, wanting him to lend her some money for booze and cigars.

 

  
**to faithfully serve**   


This was it. Standing at attention and looking ahead, Helo said the words along with the others. His dress uniform fit surprisingly well.

“I swear to faithfully serve the Twelve Colonies of Kobol...”

 _All_ of it fit surprisingly well. He didn’t consider himself a passionate patriot but this, it felt right. It was possibly one of the most important moments of his life.

“...and to bravely defend the rights and freedom of the Colonial people...”

Three feet to his left, Kara started giggling.

Helo kicked her in the shin.

She snickered harder.

“So say we all.”

His lips twitched.

 

  
**penelope**   


Helo spends his leave on Aquaria, where he wanders the streets of Elimea and meets a girl called Penelope, a waitress at a shrimps bar. They spend most days in bed. On others, they sit on the beach.

“What do you want to do with your pay?” she asks, huddled against his chest. “After your time in the service?”

“I want to get married,” Helo says without thinking. “Meet the right girl, build a house somewhere back home and fill it with children...” Realizing what he’s saying, he clears his voice.

Penelope smirks.

They both know she isn’t that girl.

 

  
**misconceptions**   


A new officer has transferred to Galactica, and he keeps giving Helo glances whenever he thinks that nobody will notice. It’s confusing at first, making Helo wonder why his smile suddenly flusters fellow officers.

When he gets it, he apologizes for the misunderstanding.

“I’m really sorry,” he says one morning in the duty lockers when it’s just the two of them. “But I’m straight.”

“Oh, I know,” Gaeta says, his face reddening.

Helo frowns in confusion. “So why me?”

Gaeta chuckles, averting his eyes.

“Because only you’d apologize,” he says and flees the room before Helo can open his mouth.

 

  
**best laid plans**   


Only rooks drank ambrosia on an empty stomach but Helo had a plan. It almost worked too. In the morning, he only left his rack to puke; but the important part was that he woke up thinking, _Shit, I’ll never drink that much again_ instead of, _Boomer is frakking Chief Tyrol._

It worked beautifully for all of five minutes.

Groaning, Helo crawled back into bed, trying to not remember opening the armory’s hatch and... Gods, had he been the only one on board who hadn’t known?

Now he felt nauseated and ridiculous.

Maybe this hadn’t been his best plan ever.

 

  
**that girl**   


Boomer tracked him down at lunchtime, taking a seat across from him. Helo just ate on. He still felt hung-over like hell.

“Thank you for not ratting us out,” she said firmly.

“You know I wouldn’t.” Crooking a smile, he glanced up. “Have an apple.”

“That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be grateful.” Boomer ignored the apple and focused on him. “Seriously. Thank you.”

He shrugged, swallowing. “Hope it’s worth the fun.”

Boomer smiled. “It’s not just fun,” she said. “Galen wants to build us a house.”

Smiling became just a bit harder. “Lucky bastard.”

 _Is he ever._

Boomer’s smile grew.

 

  
**old news**   


It happens for the first time when he’s sixteen. Amy Fels drags him into an alley to talk math. Karl listens politely. One day later, all the school talks about how she made him a man.

It’s annoying at age nineteen, when Timona Lochley claims he knocked her up although he barely knows her name. She turns out to be a virgin. He’ll forever resent her for the slap his mum gives him for that one.

At age twenty-nine, it’s old news.

“So,” Starbuck says, dealing him in. “Girlfriend on Aerelon, huh?”

Karl just smirks.

They say silence is gold.

 

  
**pin-up**   


Helo could have explained to him that he hadn’t had a _choice_ but he was too annoyed to try. Caprica had been hell. Sharon was in the brig. He didn’t have time for a frakking rook.

“Alright, nugget,” he said. “Listen closely. You won’t tell anybody that you’ve ever seen me pose on a pin-up, in the nude or otherwise. I won’t tell anybody that you reading Piconian upper class mags means you must have been a frakking millionaire before. Deal?”

Hot Dog smirked. “Deal,” he said, and Helo breathed a sigh of relief.

That at least had been easy.

 

  
**relics of war**   


Helo’s service pistol looks older and more worn than any other on board, not at all like the slick standard military issue carried by most of Galactica’s pilots. The muzzle is scratched something bad and the handle wears perfectly even imprints of his fingers. The metal has rusted from Caprican rain.

Sharon suggests that he should just requisition a new one but Helo refuses.

It might be stupid and a superstition but he made a deal with that gun in a forest. And _she_ stuck to her part of that deal.

He’ll be damned if he doesn’t stick to his.


End file.
